ESCAPE THWARTED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25214, 1 May 1943, Page 6

ESCAPE THWARTED

PETAIN AND OTHERS LAVAL’S MOVE IN 1940 LONDON, Apl. 29. M. Pierre Vience, Under-secretary for Foreign Affairs in the Blum Cabinet from 1936-37, who has recently arrived in England, was one of a party of French statesmen who, in June, 1940 intended to sail to North Africa to continue the fight against the Axis. Marshal Petain and other leaders were to follow in a destroyer, but at the last moment the decision was reversed owing to the intervention of Laval who was not then a member of the Government. M. Vience eventually reached North Africa, but was arrested bv the Vichy authorities in Morocco and imprisoned at Casablanca. After his release. M. Vience returned to France. He visited M. Paul Rev--naud. who was Prime Minister of France at the time of the country’s surrender, and is now a prisoner at, Le Pertelat. in the Pyrenees. He said M. Reynaud’s cell was lOJft by 4£ft, and so damp that the walls ran with water. The sunshine never entered Reynaud’s exercise vard, which was 20yds square, M. Vience added: “ What misery, but what moral courage M. Eeynaud shows. He is writing his memoirs, and they will create a sensation when they arc published after the war.” The resistance of the French people to Axis domination was described as verv strong by M. Vience. He said what little anti-British feeling there was in France had now entirely disappeared and there was complete faith m, the Allies.